After a rough performance in the 2014 Olympics, where no U.S. long-track speedskater medaled, Brian Hansen took a break from the ice for nearly two years.

At the University of Colorado, he joined the downhill skiing club and the mountain biking club. He earned a degree in business.

“It’s not that I needed the two years off. It’s that I needed to explore other things,” said Hansen, who is from Glenview. “Realistically, skating isn’t something to make a full living on. It was for diversifying my life.”

Hansen enters the Winter Games in South Korea refreshed, having finished second at the U.S. trials in the 1,500 meters and winning the mass start.

He was a silver medalist in the team pursuit in the 2010 Olympics, while also finishing 18th in the 1,500. He qualified again in 2014, but finished a disappointing seventh in the 1,500 and team pursuit and ninth in the 1,000.

“Each Olympics is different,” said Hansen, 27. “I’m excited to go give this 1,500 another shot and see how we do in the team pursuit. I’m really excited about the mass start. It’s the first time in the Olympics and to be part of that is fun and exciting. (Competing in a third Olympics helps with) knowing what to look forward to, things that will help and also what to stay away from as far as distractions.”

Hansen, who has lived in Milwaukee for about six years, grew up training at the Northbrook Speed Skating Club. He linked up with four-time Olympian Nancy Swider-Peltz Sr., who has been Hansen’s coach since he was 9 alongside her children Nancy and Jeffrey.

Nancy Swider-Peltz Sr. put him through drills during open skate periods at a Glen Ellyn hockey rink with a disco ball above the ice.

“That was the beginning of him developing technique,” she said. “Even though you couldn’t really skate there; it was shoulder-to-shoulder packed. It forced us to work on technique. I would stand behind him and help him get the rhythm. This is probably why Brian is the most rhythmic skater in the world.”

She preached patience with Hansen.

“I’m talking like walking-speed slow,” Hansen said of the technique drills early in his training. “Out and back. It was really boring but it’s really paid off. It’s a good way to gain a (base of) technical skills.”

His parents would drive him to Milwaukee’s Pettit National Ice Center for practices — “1 hour and 15 minutes exactly,” said his dad, John. Brian would nap, do homework and eat in the car on the way to and from the rink, which they traveled to about four times per week.

“(Were we) crazy,” Julie Hansen, Brian’s mom, asked. “There were definitely days or weeks where it was tiring. But he was serious when he came here and he never took it for granted.”

Hansen now finds time for activities outside of skating.

He picked up surfing in the last few years, riding waves off the coasts of South Korea after a World Cup competition and the Netherlands.

He also surfs on Lake Michigan — often in the winter.

“Believe it or not, there are other people out there,” he said. “There are some hard-core guys doing this for years. I’m kind of new to it. It’s something I’ve enjoyed and I’m passionate about.”